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Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Google Sheets is a great tool for tracking and entering data. The Validation command allows us to create a dropdown menu for people to choose from, which helps with consitency. But what if you don't know what the choices are going to be?

By using the UNIQUE function, you can create dropdown menus that automatically updated based on what users are entering. That way, our users can choose items based on previous entries or add a new item that will automatically update our list.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

As part of the Google Apps suite of tools, MacEwan University has access to Google Hangouts. Think of Hangouts as conversations - you can carry on a conversation through text (like different messenger apps), through audio (like a telephone) or video (like Skype). Best of all, if you’re using Chrome, they’re all easily available through your browser - you don’t need to run a separate app or download any plugins.

If you’re using Google Chrome, I recommend downloading the Google Hangouts extension (https://goo.gl/JXPtm). This places a button at the top of your window that will allow you to start a Hangout. It will also listen for an invitation to Hangouts and open the conversation window. As this is a Chrome extension, Chrome must be running for this to work.

Here’s a quick video (https://goo.gl/mUoIQq) that explains the installation process and what you can do with it. Although I didn't mention it in the video, you can also use Hangouts to make free calls to phone numbers in Canada and the United States.